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Staying Healthy at Work
Staying healthy at work makes it easier to do your job. For many people, staying healthy at work begins with proper office space ergonomics — such as correct chair height, proper equipment spacing and good posture.
For others, staying healthy at work means preventing back pain and injury. The best bet? Exercise regularly — even if your job keeps you moving. Better yet, consider ways to include physical activity and gentle stretching in your workday. Strong and flexible muscles help keep your back in shape.
If your job involves travel, staying healthy at work might mean fitting in a workout while you’re away from home.
Staying healthy at work also extends to your mental health and family life. Consider strategies to boost job satisfaction, improve work-life balance and prevent job burnout.
Stay Safe at Work
If work isn’t performed safely, it can put a lot of wear and tear on your body. Back injuries are the most common type of workplace injury.
Make simple changes to prevent injuries and stay healthy:
- Lift things safely.
- Arrange your equipment to fit your body.
- Take short breaks and stretch your muscles.
- Eat a healthy diet and stay active.
- Watch your weight.
- Get enough sleep.
via Workplace Safety.
Adult Obesity
Obesity is common, serious, and costly. In 2009, about 2.4 million more adults were obese than in 2007. This epidemic has affected every part of the United States. In every state, more than 15% of adults are obese, and in nine states, over 30% of adults are obese. The medical care costs of obesity in the United States are staggering. In 2008 dollars, these costs totaled about $147 billion. More efforts are needed, and new federal initiatives are helping to change our communities into places that strongly support healthy eating and active living.
Facts about Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Substance Dependency is a Disease
Alcohol is such a big part of American life today that we rarely stop to consider our pattern of drinking. We drink wine with dinner, or have a few drinks after work, or even a few beers while watching a ball game, but when a pattern of drinking begins to emerge, it can become a problem.
Drug use in America is also more commonplace than it once was. In today’s teenage population over 90 percent have used alcohol. Over 50 percent have used marijuana, 17 percent admit to trying cocaine and 12.5 percent have used some form of hallucinogen.
Why is exercise important?
Have you ever heard the expression “use it or lose it”? Its true! If you don’t use your body, you will surely lose it. Your muscles will become flabby and weak. Your heart and lungs wont function efficiently. And your joints will be stiff and easily injured. Inactivity is as much of a health risk as smoking!
- Helps Prevent Diseases-Our bodies were meant to move — they actually crave exercise. Regular exercise is necessary for physical fitness and good health. It reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes and other diseases. It can improve your appearance and delay the aging process.
- Improves Stamina-When you exercise, your body uses energy to keep going. Aerobic exercise involves continuous and rhythmic physical motion, such as walking and bicycling. It improves your stamina by training your body to become more efficient and use less energy for the same amount of work. As your conditioning level improves, your heart rate and breathing rate return to resting levels much sooner from strenuous activity.
- Strengthens and Tones-Exercising with weights and other forms of resistance training develops your muscles, bones and ligaments for increased strength and endurance. Your posture can be improved, and your muscles become more firm and toned. You not only feel better, but you look better, too!
- Enhances Flexibility-Stretching exercises are also important for good posture. They keep your body limber so that you can bend, reach and twist. Improving your flexibility through exercise reduces the chance of injury and improves balance and coordination. If you have stiff, tense areas, such as the upper back or neck, performing specific stretches can help “loosen” those muscles, helping you feel more relaxed.
- Controls Weight-Exercise is also a key to weight control because it burns calories. If you burn off more calories than you take in, you lose weight. Its as simple as that.
- Improves Quality of Life-Once you begin to exercise regularly, you will discover many more reasons why exercise is so important to improving the quality of your life. Exercise reduces stress, lifts moods, and helps you sleep better. It can keep you looking and feeling younger throughout your entire life.
Get Regular Check-Ups
Remember to schedule regular health checkups. These can help identify a medical condition before symptoms appear. Your health plan probably recommends a schedule for wellness checkups based on age and sex. Discuss this with your healthcare provider because he or she might advise you to get some checkups sooner or more often if you are at risk for certain illnesses. Be sure that your wellness checkup includes all the recommended tests and procedures.
Stress at Work
While some workplace stress is normal, excessive stress can interfere with your productivity and impact your physical and emotional health. And your ability to deal with it can mean the difference between success or failure. You can’t control everything in your work environment, but that doesn’t mean you’re powerless—even when you’re stuck in a difficult situation. Finding ways to manage workplace stress isn’t about making huge changes or rethinking career ambitions, but rather about focusing on the one thing that’s always within your control: you.
via Stress at Work: How to Reduce and Manage Workplace and Job Stress.
Sleep, Performance, and Public Safety
Insufficient sleep may not have led the news in reporting on serious accidents in recent decades. However, that doesn’t mean fatigue and inattention due to sleep loss didn’t play a role in these disasters. For example, investigators have ruled that sleep deprivation was a significant factor in the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, as well as the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.
Investigations of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, as well as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, have concluded that sleep deprivation also played a critical role in these accidents. In both cases, those in charge of the operations and required to make critical decisions were operating under extreme sleep deprivation. While the Challenger disaster put the multi-billion dollar shuttle program in peril, the Exxon Valdez oil spill resulted in incalculable ecological, environmental, and economic damage.
Healthy Eating for a Healthy Weight
A healthy lifestyle involves many choices. Among them, choosing a balanced diet or healthy eating plan. So how do you choose a healthy eating plan? Let’s begin by defining what a healthy eating plan is.
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010, a healthy eating plan:
- Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products
- Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts
- Is low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars
- Stays within your daily calorie needs
via Healthy Weight: Healthy Eating for a Healthy Weight | DNPAO | CDC.
Signs of Heart Disease
Early heart disease often doesn’t have symptoms; that’s why regular checkups with a healthcare provider are important. Your doctor will check things like cholesterol, a fat that can add to plaques in your arteries, and your blood pressure. He might also do a blood test for CRP (c-reactive protein). You might also have an ECG or EKG, an electrocardiogram. This is a test that looks at electrical activity in your heart.
Everyone should know the outward warning signs of heart disease. Chest pain should be taken seriously. Pain in the chest, shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back can be a symptom of heart disease. If you have heart disease, you might feel chest pain during physical activity. But, it can have other causes too, so it is important to check with your doctor to learn what is triggering yours.
Heart Attack? Call 9-1-1 Act in time: Learn the warning signs of a heart attack. If you or someone you know might be having a heart attack, call 9-1-1 right away. You need to take an ambulance to the hospital as soon as possible. Do not try to drive yourself, and do not have someone else drive you unless there is no ambulance service where you live. These warning signs can include crushing chest pain and/or discomfort or pain elsewhere in the upper body, nausea, a cold sweat, fainting or lightheadedness, or shortness of breath.
Other signs of heart disease include a weak or numb feeling on one side of the face or body, dizziness, headache, shortness of breath, tiredness, and swelling in the ankles, feet, legs, stomach, and neck. Some people who have a problem with their heartbeat may report a fluttering in their chest or the feeling that their heart is skipping a beat or beating too hard.
Talk to your doctor if you have any of these signs. Your healthcare provider may want you to see someone who specializes in heart disease. This doctor is called a cardiologist.
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